I do not think of myself as a fearful person, afraid to travel, and god and Kelly Price know that the most fun I’ve had were the months we hitchhiked around Ireland in between painfully dull classes at UC-Dublin in 1981. Vaguely remember being in the back of a pickup truck with goats. Not sure where or why. And no, that really wasn’t the highlight.

At any rate, dropping my daughter off at Dulles Airport last week on her way to Spain via Ireland, I was wound up. After a day or so of being obsessive-compulsive about the whereabouts of her passport, boarding passes, money etc., I had done what I could do and she had to do the rest. That is what is supposed to happen. I managed long ago with no phone or credit card or internet and now she gets to make it all work. Lucky for her.

So it was sort of a relief to wave goodbye and know she was on her way to her adventures and I wasn’t responsible in the least for the weight of her carry-on or  a thousand other details. So, pulling out of the Dulles parking lot, I turned on the radio and no joke, the announcer said, “Two earthquakes along the southern coast of Spain today killed 10 people.”  Almost funny–except for the dead people and pain and destruction.

Of course, she was heading to Ireland first, by way of Heathrow, so the news didn’t really resonate–just added to the mix.  We Skyped the other day and she mentioned that the Queen was coming to Ireland just as she was trying to get to Dublin and then fly to Madrid.  Didn’t really think of it until the next morning when NPR came on and told me “Police detonated a bomb on a bus in Dublin this morning in advance of the Queen’s visit.”  What is this, my daughter’s radio feed? She was to take a bus to Dublin from Cork later that day. 

I think I’ll stop listening to the radio for a while.